CONFIRMATORY EVIDENCE.
It was eleven o’clock when the touring car containing the detectives
stopped in front of an attractive wooden residence in a quiet and very
reputable section of Fordham.
Nick directed Patsy to accompany him, while Danny waited in the car, and
his ring brought an elderly, refined-looking woman to the door, whom
Nick at first supposed was one of the boarders.
“I wish to see Mrs. Lord, the landlady,” he informed her.
“I am Mrs. Lord, sir,” was the reply, smiling. “Will you walk in?”
“Yes, thank you. I wish to inquire about one of your boarders.”
“One of them!” The woman laughed lightly. “I have only one, sir, and I
consented to take her only to slightly increase my limited income. I do
not keep what might be more properly termed a boarding house. What Miss
Perrot pays me enables me to keep an extra servant, which relieves me of
most of the housework. Will you be seated, gentlemen?”
They had followed her into a neatly furnished parlor, and Nick now saw
plainly that she was an unassuming and thoroughly honest woman, one upon
whom a crafty person could very easily impose. He reasoned, too, that
that might be why Pauline Perrot was established there.
“Your boarder is Miss Perrot?” he said inquiringly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is she at home?”
“Oh, no, she never is here at this hour,” said the landlady. “She is
employed as a stenographer by a New York banker, Mr. Arthur Gordon. But
she now is away on a visit. She will be gone about a week.”
“Gee! that’s sure to be the longest week on record,” thought Patsy.
“When did she go, Mrs. Lord?” Nick inquired.
“She left from her office yesterday, sir, but she sent her trunk away
two days ago.”
“Why did she send her trunk in advance?”
“I don’t know, sir. I did not inquire.”
“Did you know Miss Perrot before she came to board here?”
“I did not, sir. She was a stranger.”
“Do you now know anything definite about her?”
“Only what she has told me.”
“I’m afraid that is not very reliable.”
“Dear me! What do you mean?” Mrs. Lord exclaimed apprehensively. “Who
are you, sir, that you question me in this way about her?”
“My name is Carter. I am a detective,” Nick now informed her. “Mr.
Gordon is mysteriously missing, also a considerable fortune from his
office safe. Miss Perrot is suspected of----”
“Not of having robbed Mr. Gordon?” interrupted the landlady
incredulously. “Oh, I cannot believe that, sir! She has repeatedly told
me that Mr. Gordon was quite likely to marry her.”
“I would not take much stock in what she has told you,” Nick dryly
advised. “Nor do I think it probable that she will ever return here.”
“Well, well, you amaze me!”
“Has she been receiving any visitors while here?”
“No, sir, never!” said Mrs. Lord emphatically. “I often have wondered at
that. She has no mail, nor appears to have any friends, except Mr.
Gordon. He frequently has brought her home from his office, but he never
came in.”
“Did she go out evenings?”
“Yes, occasionally. But she always returned at a reasonable hour, and
always alone.”
“I wish to inspect her room, Mrs. Lord,” said Nick. “This is a very
serious matter, or I would not make the request.”
“If all you have told me is true, sir, I cannot consistently refuse,”
was the reply. “I will show you the way.”
Both Nick and Patsy followed her upstairs and into an attractively
furnished front chamber.
“Everything is in order, Mr. Carter, but I have deferred sweeping and
cleaning the room until the day before I expected Miss Perrot to
return,” she said, when they entered.
“We will disturb nothing,” Nick replied. “Has she sent away all of her
garments?”
“I cannot say, Mr. Carter. I have not looked.”
“I will do so, then, with your permission,” Nick remarked.
He did not wait for a reply, but at once began a thorough inspection of
the room. In the wardrobe closet were some partly worn garments, two
shirt waists, a blue woolen skirt, an Eton jacket, and a single pair of
button boots on the floor.
Nick examined all of these very carefully, hoping to find some
suggestive mark on one of them, or evidence of some significance, but
the examination proved entirely futile. They were no different from the
garments of a thousand and one other young women.
The drawer of the dressing stand was empty, while the china trays on top
contained only a few hairpins, a plated stickpin of no great value, and
a few equally insignificant articles.
In one of the bureau drawers, however, Nick found a quantity of
underwear, including two pairs of stockings, of all of which he at first
made only a cursory examination. He soon noticed one curious fact,
however, and remarked to Patsy:
“By Jove, this is strange!”
“What’s that, chief?” questioned Patsy, joining him at the bureau.
“All of this underwear is new,” Nick pointed out. “Not a piece of it has
been worn.”
“You’re right, chief.” Patsy peered into the drawer. “That’s plain
enough.”
“But why it was left here is not so plain,” said Nick. “A girl going
away on a visit usually takes her best garments in preference to those
she has worn.”
“That’s right, too, chief,” Patsy agreed. “But she may be well
supplied.”
“I’m not at all sure that that explains it,” Nick replied dryly. “What
have you there?”
“Fragments of a letter from the waste basket, also the torn envelope in
which it came,” said Patsy. “It is written in French.”
“I thought you said, Mrs. Lord, that Miss Perrot has received no letters
while here?” said Nick, turning to the waiting landlady. “My assistant
has found one in her wastebasket.”
“I meant, sir, that she was not in the habit of receiving letters,” Mrs.
Lord hastened to explain. “A letter did come for her two days ago. It
was taken in and brought up to her by my servant. I really had forgotten
it.”
“I understand,” smiled Nick. “I must ask you to wait, however, while I
unite these fragments, so I can read the letter.”
“I am in no hurry, sir.”
“Written in French, eh?” Nick muttered, while he and Patsy seated
themselves at a table. “We soon can patch it together. It may provide a
clew to the girl’s identity.”
“That was my idea, chief,” nodded Patsy. “There is nothing doing in the
desk. I have searched it thoroughly.”
“Is there paste in the desk?”
“Yes.”
“Get it, also a sheet of blank paper,” Nick directed. “This letter is
written on only one side of the sheet. We can quickly unite the torn
edges and paste it to the other.”
The task was completed in a few minutes. The following letter, dated two
days before, and written in French with a pen and ink, then was brought
to light:
“MY DEAR PAULINE: You have made me heartless, thoroughly heartless,
and I ought to hate you for it. I am not sure that I do not.
Though horribly averse to taking the hideous step upon which you
insist, your threats leave me no sane alternative, none that would
let me look my family and friends in the face.
“I submit to what you require, therefore, but I will not leave with
you until Thursday. I must adjust many personal matters, and also
prepare for the future. One cannot live on love and kisses.
“Make it Thursday, therefore, and in accord with the plans you have
suggested. Not a word about it in the office to-morrow. It staggers
me when I think of it, the horrible situation in which you have
involved me. Some men would wipe you out of existence, as I perhaps
shall--but, no, no, I could not live with human blood on my hands.
Shame, sorrow, and remorse are terrible enough.
“After Thursday---- Well, we shall see!
“ARTHUR GORDON.”
“Great guns! What do you make of that, chief?” questioned Patsy, after
both had read the letter, both being familiar with the French language.
“We will discuss it later,” Nick quietly replied. “This woman has ears,
you know, and a tongue.”
“I’ve got you.”
Nick slipped the letter into his pocket, also the torn envelope, then
arose and turned to the landlady.
“Do you know where Miss Perrot sent her trunk, or who took it away?” he
inquired.
“I do not, Mr. Carter. A man with a wagon came after it.”
“An expressman?”
“I don’t think so. There was no name on the wagon.”
“You saw the man and the team?”
“I did, sir.”
“Can you describe them?”
“Only in a general way. The man was short, thickset, and quite dark. The
horse was a gray one, and the wagon of moderate size, without a top.”
“Very good,” Nick said approvingly. “There is no doubt in my mind, Mrs.
Lord, that Pauline Perrot will never return to this house. She is
probably a very clever criminal.”
“In that case, Mr. Carter, I hope she never will return,” Mrs. Lord said
gravely. “I am much surprised. I would not have thought it.”
“Have you missed anything from the house?”
“I have not, sir. I now see, however, that a brush and comb which I
loaned her are gone from the dressing stand.”
“H’m! Is that so?”
“She may have taken them by accident when packing her trunk.”
Nick did not reply. Instead, turning to Patsy, he said:
“Raise both curtains, Patsy, as high as they will go.”
Then, dropping on his hands and knees, Nick began a sharp scrutiny of
the carpet and a rug near the dressing stand, much to the amazement of
the waiting woman.
For more than ten minutes he continued this inspection, and at times
using a lens and picking something from the floor. When he arose he had
between his fingers several black hairs, some quite long, which
evidently had dropped from Pauline Perrot’s brush or comb. He inclosed
them in his notebook, which he then replaced in his pocket.
“Now, Mrs. Lord, I am going to take away these few garments Miss Perrot
left here,” Nick informed her. “Here is my card. If any inquiries are
made, which is entirely improbable, you may refer the person to me.”
The woman glanced at the card, then gazed more intently at the famous
detective. She evidently had heard of him, but had not suspected his
identity till then, for she said quickly:
“Very well, Mr. Carter. I am sure that anything you do will be right and
proper.”
Nick bowed and glanced at Patsy.
“Roll up the garments and the pair of boots in the wardrobe closet,” he
directed. “Take them out to the car. I will bring the underwear in the
bureau.”
It was noon when they departed with the various articles, all that
Pauline Perrot had left as links in the chain, or to tell a fateful and
tragic story.
“Back to the Gordon place, Danny,” said Nick, after he and Patsy were
seated.
More than half the distance had been covered, when, rounding a curve in
the woodland road, two figures appeared some fifty yards in advance of
the speeding car.
One was a gaunt, lop-eared hound.
The other was a roughly clad man of middle age, with a shotgun under his
left arm, and under his right a large bundle. He turned quickly, as he
heard the approaching car, then stepped to the middle of the road and
held up the gun.
“Slow down, Danny,” Nick commanded. “That fellow wants us to stop.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Patsy, a bit derisively. “He’s got a gun. Are we up
against a holdup?”
“Nothing of that kind. He has something to say to us.”
Nick was right. For when the car stopped near him, the man approached
and said a bit gruffly:
“Gimme a lift, gents, will you? I want to go to Jim Bailey’s house, a
mile farther on. He’s a county constable. There has been a murder.”
“A murder?” Nick echoed. “How do you know? What have you there?”
“Some things Ginger sniffed out of some underbrush near the old millpond
back in the woods a piece,” said the man, with a glance at the hound. “I
saw a man and a girl plugging that way early yesterday evening. She had
this hat on, I’ll swear to that, and she was lugging this jacket on her
arm. Have a look at them.”
The man unrolled a dark-green jacket and a stylish, velvet hat of the
same hue. The latter was sadly battered and out of shape, as if beaten
with a bludgeon. A crumpled handkerchief fell to the ground.
“Here are two worked letters on the handkerchief,” he added, picking it
up. “P. P., as near as I can tell.”
“Pauline Perrot!” cried Patsy, momentarily excited.
He had recalled the description of the dark-green traveling suit worn by
Pauline Perrot, as reported by the two women who had seen her with
Arthur Gordon.
They were, indeed, the garments of the suspected girl.
All of them were soiled and--red with blood.